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Nerd Nite Noho

The Valley Nerd Watch!

Hello friends! Hope you’re having a lovely start of spring.

Remember to come out to Nerd Nite NoHo next Monday! It’s going to be a very nice time where two excellent people will present about two excellent topics. We’ll have nature guide Kery Emma Ellis discussing the scourge of “Greenwashing” by people attempting to pretend their products and services are “good for nature” despite being “basically just lying and using green and teal on the packaging a lot”! That’s going to be followed up with Greg Dennis, Research Director for Voter Choice Massachusetts, talking about ranked choice voting!

We’d also like to specifically point out the 2017 Pioneer Valley Zine Fest! Zines are fun and neat and there are a ton of folks who are going to be there with really cool artwork so you should go see them and say “Wow, nice job! Here is the amount of money you’ve indicated this zine or other piece of artwork costs!”

THIS WEEK

Art:

Anna M. Warrock and Cindy Snow will present readings from their new works! Anna M. Warrock has had a poem installed permanently in the Boston subway which means she’s going to probably eventually inspire some kind of post-apocalyptic cult eventually. Cindy Snow has been featured in a bunch of poetry reviews and she does peer tutoring at Greenfield Community College. Both of them have chapbooks out for your reading pleasure!

Drop into the museum for an open mic, poetry reading, and one-night art exchange in the museum! Open mic begins at 6pm and the featured readers follow: Jenna Baillargeon is a second year at Hampshire, and is the featured Open Mic reader, and students of The Literacy Project will be reading original memoirs and poems afterward, accompanied by Judith Willams on the keyboard.

Saturday, April 8th

Flywheel Arts Collective [43 Main St., Easthampton, MA 01027]

2017 Pioneer Valley Zine Fest

Zines! Zines for miles! Join zine creators and fans from around New England! It’s a great chance to see amazing artwork and give the people who produce it a few bucks! Zines are keen!

Board Games:

Games! Beautiful board games! Have a great time playing games and enjoying a friendly community! Have a drink at a nice bar and hang out with people who are nice also. This wee, Forbidden Island and Innovation are the featured games!

See http://www.the131.com/forum for details! This tournament will test your ability to command the forces of weird grossness in the game Malifaux, which is distinct from other tabletop games in a manner we are not qualified to comment upon. Mostly we notice that there are a lot of Frankenstein monster looking things.

Burger King Community Room [344 King St., Northampton, MA 01060] at 12:30 PM to 6:00 PM

Tabletop Gaming Day

Game! At a table! With tops! Play with tops, is what we’re saying. Play with the bet game of all: tabletops. The game of kings! Beyblade we just realized our joke game is also Beyblade. But for actual this meetup usually goes for Euro-games like Settlers/Carcassone etc, but they’re open to whatever you’re interested in!

Books:

How do you stay true to the folks you care about while trying to change the world? That’s what botany major Jeremy has to struggle with when he gets wrapped up with a group of eco-terrorists trying to save the plants he loves, and is inextricably bound to.

John Scalzi, The Collapsing Empire with Scott Lynch and Elizabeth Bear

The Odyssey Bookshop is hosting a big ol’ sci-fi hootenanny! John Scalzi will talk about his latest book, and he’ll be joined by fellow wonderful authors Scott Lynch and Elizabeth Bear! The book’s about a far future where humanity finds a sort of hyperspace river that allows FTL travel, but then finds that it’s slowly moving around and soon the quick travel that maintains an interstellar empire will no longer be where it needs to be! It sounds neat!

Three excellent YA authors on a panel talking about their three recent books that are all about tragic circumstances and young women dealing with difficult issues.

Hooker Auditorium, Mount Holyoke College at 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Lindy West, Shrill: Notes From A Loud Woman

Lindy West will speak and read from her memoir! Hilarious tales of how to handle just generally the unfortunate bits of being alive. Lindy West is a prolific writer and generally regarded as “wicked good at writing and also wicked funny”.

Community:

Pioneer Valley Project invites you to join them in the fight to end mass incarceration in Massachusetts! If you’re into the idea of repealing mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses, changing some felony thresholds, increasing funding for re-entry programs and education during incarceration then you should help them fight for these reforms!

Entertainment:

A staged read by the Holyoke Community College theater department of the play Getting Out, a play by the Pulitzer-winning author of ‘Night Mother. The play is the story of Arlene, a woman struggling to survive on the outside after being incarcerated for eight years in a Kentucky Prison.

Have you ever wanted to make a tiny world that’s entirely comprised of people frozen in time save for the trains? Are the trains the masters of this world, or do they merely exist in some other state of being? Well two railroad enthusiasts, George Reneris and Harry Ruddock, will help answer questions about how you can put together a sweet model railroad!

Figure out how to get your stuff to stop being a gigantic terrible pile of nonsense that you don’t need or want! Dave Downs will offer some upbeat tips for getting all your various junk into a place where it can no loner bother you!

Dr. Gilbery Welch, author of “Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions that Drive Too Much Medical Care” will present in a free public forum! He’s a general internist with an interest in the issues created by overzealous efforts to detect early disease, mostly over-screening for cancer. It’s worth taking a look, maybe you’ll be less inclined to freak out over your own health!

Community Building as Resistance: The Northampton Association at 175 years.

Commemorate the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry! First you’ll get a walking tour of the Northampton Association Lands, and then you’ll see two lectures and a panel, about Abolition and Community in Northampton in the 1840s and construction of the progressive industrial village of Florence. And finally, a panel about the meaning of the Northampton Association Experiment!

History:

This is a huge day! There’s a bunch to learn about ancient Rome! Inspired by the exhibition of the Villas of Oplontis near Pompeii that’s currently ongoing at the museum, there are a ton of things going on! Make your own fresco! Tour with a docent! Watch seventh-graders perform skits about ancient Rome! Stroll through a recreated Roman Garden!

Movies:

Finding Babel chronicles a grandson’s search for the legacy of the greatest prose writer of the Russian Jewish community, and whose subversive work led t his tragic end. Isaac Babel is best known for his short story collections Odessa Stories and Red Cavalry, he challenged the ideology of the early Soviet Union and that challenging writing resulted in his execution in 1940 by the Soviet Regime. This movie tracks his grandson’s journeys through Ukraine, France, and Russian to confront the relevance of his ancestor’s work.

RPGs:

Magestry is looking for anyone interested in being an orc, a monster, a brigand, a barbarian, a general-purpose rough customer! They need a lot of NPCs to take care of an increasing number of PCs! You can play for free and even get food! You don’t even need to stay the whole weekend, a couple of hours would be a big help! Find out more by contacting NPC@Magestry.com or checking out the meetup at https://www.meetup.com/larping/events/238838016/

The Valley Nerd Watch!

This week we want to draw your attention to a local creator’s Kickstarter! Anna Leue of the sci-fi webcomic Half-Man made us aware of the fact that her newest comic, The Other Son – a Dark Western One-Shot Comic.

It sounds like a classic western tale of sadness, revenge, and community. It’s a story about a young man returning from his travels to find the family from which he had become estranged has been murdered. He needs to find out by whom and for what reason and make things right!

The story was completed last year, but they want to make a print run so you can get it into your hot little hands. It’ll be live Monday, and we’ll provide a link then!

Don’t forget to check out Nerd Nite NoHo on Monday, it’ll be an excellent night as always! We’re really looking forward to seeing you there! We’re going to be talking Nitro Coffee and legal defense!

Also we’ve been playing two games recently: INSIDE and The Witness, and we’ve gotta highly recommend them both. INSIDE is creepy and a pretty decent puzzle-platformer, and The Witness is maybe the prettiest and best puzzle game we’ve played in a long time.

THIS WEEK

Art:

Paint the 45-million-dollar flower with Gregory Maichack! In this two-hour workshop you’ll learn how to paint like Georgia O’Keefe, no experience necessary! Registration is needed because space is limited, call (413) 283-3330! This could be the experience that kickstarts your career as a dashing art forger/cat burgler!

Check out Northampton’s amazing local museum for free! It’s amazing and you should definitely take a look if you haven’t already and if you have take another look! Also if you can, they recommend a $5 donation. They’re neat, you should donate if you can!

See some great artwork by three great artists and hang out at a reception drinking coffee and having some nice crackers!

Board Games:

Friday, January 13th

Burger King Community Room [344 King St., Northampton, MA 01060] at 6:30 PM to 10:30 PM

Tabletop Game Night

Another delightful night playing boardgames with some very nice people! The room’s reserved, the games are cool. Mostly Euro games, but they’re open to whatever you think is fun! The things they’ve played in the past are Pandemic, 7 Wonders, Ticket to Ride, stuff like that! It’s a cool time and a good way to meet fellow boardgame fans!

Free entry! There are four sections: K-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12! Round one starts at 10:00am, and it’s a 4-round Swiss System. There are trophies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in each section! Bring your own chess set and clock if you’ve got them, and a bagged lunch!

Books:

Come celebrate the work of four local creators who’ve recently published new books and who live around here! The Pioneer Valley has a ton of excellent authors and it is pretty excellent. You’ll see Jacqueline Sheehan, author of “The Center of the World”; M.B. Caschetta, author of “Pretend I’m Your Friend”; Jendi Reiter, author of “Two Natures”, and Zane Kotker, author of “Goodnight, Ladies”! It’ll be amazing and you’re lucky to have the opportunity to attend!

It’s your chance to play some new cards from the newest Magic: the Gathering expansion! It’s a 3-round sealed-deck tournament, so you need to have some idea of how to play Magic even if you don’t need to be an expert. All attendees who complete the event will leave with at least one extra Aether Revolt pack along with other promo swag! Stop by the store or call to prepay for discounted admission and a guarantee of a seat! Admission is $30 plus tax in advance, $35 plus tax at the door!

Community:

Mount Grace and Green Burial Massachusetts will present information about Conservation Cemetaries and green burials! Learn more about your options for what happens to your body after you die, and just generally take a while to think about what death traditions you’ve got and why. It sounds interesting even if you’re not shopping for a plot any time soon!

Computers:

Wednesday, January 11th

AmherstWorks [11 Amity St., Amherst, MA] at 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Agile Methods Meetup

This week, Kelly Albrecht will be talking about how you reconcile traditional project phases with the Agile process. How do you manage to work around the fact that design teams want to perfect their projects in order to make a great first impression with the fact that Agile means failing fast and getting out a minnimum viable product? Mini case studies will make it clear how you can thread that needle!

Entertainment:

Jones Library [43 Amity St., Amherst, MA 01002] at 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM

Louis Braille Day

Louis Braille was a French educator who invented a system of reading and writing that the blind or visually impaired could use! It’s pretty amazing that after being blinded as a child, he managed to not only continue his studies but also help other people continue theirs even if they had vision problems! It wasn’t used much in his lifetime or even after his death but eventually people wised up to the fact that it’s obviously amazing and started using it!

Doctor Who! The show that’s like 30% great, 30% alright, and 30% oh gosh the most embarrassing stuff, and then 10% Wild Card! Free and open to all, come watch some of the best of Doctor Who and eat snacks and such! Delightful.

Movies:

Northampton Committee to Stop War will present a free screening of the documentary film by Ivy Meeropol, granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 on charges of spying. She explores the lives and deaths of her grandparents. She reveals the impact on her extended family and her efforts to reconnect with her biological family. Leading the post-film discussion will be Robert Meeropol, a son of the Rosenbergs!

RPGs:

Play D&D with cool folk! They’ll join you in adventuring and being excellent, and that’ll be a good time for you all! We as always recommend that you play a Bard. Heck, everyone in the party should be a Bard. Just start a band and play the tavern circuit!

Science:

Monday, January 9th

World War 2 Club [50 Conz St., Northampton, MA 01060] at 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Nerd Nite NoHo

Nerd Nite! The best Nite of them all! This week you will get to see a spectacularly interesting set of presenters! First up is Elonia Lamontagne, chemistry teacher at Chicopee High School, who’ll talk about whether Nitro Brew Coffee is safe to drink. Then we’ll have Meredith L. Ryan, Esq., criminal defense attorney, who’ll talk about how to defend someone you know is guilty! Interesting talks and beer from a nice bar, what more can you ask for?

We have inside information that suggests post-election both organizers felt REAL sad and were looking for a way to help out those people who needed some help. So now they’re putting 50% of all proceeds toward charity, plus any extra donations you want to make!

We’ll keep track of how much goes where every month. This is extra incentive for you to attend or present, too! Now you get to help others while entertaining yourself! If you haven’t been to a Nerd Nite yet, this is the perfect time to attend!

The next Nerd Nite NoHo will take place Monday, December 12th at 7:00pm in the banquet room of the World War 2 Club in Northampton. It will feature Craig Issod speaking about the utility of Drones for things that are good instead of scary, and Rodrigo Zamith speaking about how polling data led to journalists being caught by surprise in the recent Presidential election, and what can be done to make sure it doesn’t happen again!

The Valley Nerd Watch!

We’re excited for this week! So many fun events. Obviously Nerd Nite is the best, but there are others! We’ve loved every Drink and Draw so far and we don’t imagine it’ll change this week.

Also we got Pokemon Y this week after being real into Pokemon Go and wanting the Real Deal and oh gosh Pokemon Go is fun but it can’t compete with a game that gives us the fuzzy lovekins that is the Bidoof! We’re going to talk to everyone at the PVGD meetup/potluck today about how great they are, and they will nod in agreement!

Also we’ve had a couple articles this week you should totally check out! Dank Dungeons is a funny, KC Green should by all rights be able to cartoon in peace forever off his meme money so make that happen, and Mass DiGI has produced some amazing games this year!

Also Legends of Fomora is back on, check that out! Local Creator Pat Nietupski is doing good work.

Also also check out Mother of Beasts! She makes incredible work and you need a familiar. You need a little goat-person to help you with your spells, that’s gonna up your combat potential and your ability to heal your pals a lot. You can get these awesome dolls made to order!

THIS WEEK

Art:

Drink and Draw has been nonstop excellent, so come to this Drink and Draw! It’s amazing! The special guest for August is Danielle Corsetto! Best known for her long running comic Girls With Slingshots, Danielle has also written Adventure Time comics for Boom! Studios. This is so much fun regardless of your capacity to draw well, check it out!

Join tinydance as they present their newest work – still we climb – during their tiny tour! This is a free performance! We hope the no-caps thing is what they actually want and it’s not just a mistake on the part of the Forbes listing!

Built in 1870 by the eccentric artist Anthony Sheffield, the building has been occupied by business people and local entrepreneurs for 150 years! Photographers Paul Griffin and Peter Norman have documented the current community of artists, artisans, teacher, craftspeople, skilled tradespeople, business people and secret magicians! Reprints of historic images and documents from Historic Northampton and Forbes Library will give historic context! Learn about Florence!

See the museum for only the amount of money they can guilt out of you! But for real it’s a great museum and if you didn’t have a couple bucks to see it before, no excuse not to check it out now!

Board Games:

Saturday, August 13th

Burger King Community Room [344 King St., Northampton, MA 01060] at 12:30 PM to 5:30 PM

Tabletop Game Day

Check out tabletop games with some very fun people! They tend to like Euro-style games with all those little cubes but they’re up for whatever you want to bring! Also the community room is actually a decent space it’s not like just everyone in the middle of the Burger King, it’s a separate place!

Terry Tempest Williams, Hour of the Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks

National Parks are breathing spaces in a world where such spaces are disappearing rapidly, which is why so many people visit and love the US National parks. Williams writes lyrically about the grandeur and special character of each part of the park system while also discussing what it means to shape these wild spaces into something of our own making. Memoir, history, social critique, this has it all!

Card Games:

On this the day of the Eldritch Moon we will gather to play probably Magic: the Gathering? It’s a $10 sign-up feed with standard decks, Dragons of Tarkir – Eldritch Moon. You can probably expect some fabulous prizes as well!

Standard format, FREE event event entry. All participants also get a free game day promo with the top 8 getting additional promos! The champion gets a Game Day Champion playmat! Also for this day, around half of the magic cards with just be standard cards like from a poker deck for added difficulty.

Standard format, FREE event event entry. All participants also get a free game day promo with the top 8 getting additional promos! The champion gets a Game Day Champion playmat! Also for this day, no one is allowed to open their eyes while playing, making for an exciting game of imaginary Magic!

Comic Books:

Talk to your fellow comic fans and creators and fans of creators and play some games about making comics and getting better at your work on your comics! It’s a top-notch opportunity to talk to people who have skills you’ll envy and who will envy your skills!

Computers:

Monday, August 8th

MYSTERY LOCATION at 5:30 PM to 9:30 PM

AWS Lambda – Monthly Full Stack Meetup

Jim Chevalier, who works as Rails team lead at Common Media will be here to discuss Lambda, an environment he uses for small isolated tasks. He’s going to show you how to go from zero to full Lambda-backed API endpoint!

Entertainment:

I See You Have Studied Your Agrippa: The Princess Bride Sword Demonstration

Jeff Goodhind and Jeff Lord, the TOP JEFFS will show off the real historical techniques presented in The Princess Bride during the duel between Inigo Montoya and the Man in Black! They’re from the Association for Renaissance and Medieval Swordsmanship and they know their stuff.

You’ll get free self-guided tours of the museum, garden and grounds! You’re welcome to eat food and drink on the grounds but not in the Homestead! Take a look around the home of this artist who probably would not have wanted to hang out with you when she was alive because she just generally didn’t like hanging with most folks it’s not really a value judgement about you specifically.

Decorate jars filled with seeds with mustaches, boys, googly eyes, google mustaches, google bows, bow eyes, etc! As the hair grows, you’ll see the face get funnier and funnier! There’s a nonrefundable $5 supply fee or a book purchase for two children to attend. Pre-register TODAY! Call 413-534-7307 or email kids@odysseybks.com

Bring a little cardboard box to sit in because that’s your car and then you can decorate it and then they can watch a cute movie and they’ll make you popcorn and aaaaaaaaw this is the most danged adorable thing in the world aaaaw dang.

Pack a lunch to experience a full day of experiments and fun! Join the friendly staff at the Carle to get into some great picture books like Inside/Outside by Lizi Boyd, Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems, and Papa, Please Get Me the Moon by Eric Carle! Then make some artwork! Books, art, creativity, the best day!

Interactive magic performance with an emphasis on the true power of the wizened wizard: reading! Spells all gotta come from somewhere, right? Lots of volunteers will have the chance to participate! Grades K-12 are all invited! Free, no RSVP required!

Movies:

See this classic YA novel adaptation on the semi-big screen at the GPL! The surrounding books give it extra power!

Saturday, August 13th

Jones Library [43 Amity St., Amherst, MA 01002] at 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM

Hot Summer Saturday Movie Matinee: Chariots of Fire

Chariots of Fire is a historical drama about the Olympics! It’s about Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, both running for their own reasons. It explores the motivations of the men who ran incredibly fast after an enormous amount of training.

This movie explores the kaleidoscope of Jewish identities through the ever-changing music of the Jewish diaspora. Taking the music beyond the concert hall, the documentary shows us artists in their daily lives and in performance, highlighting the spontaneous magic of the creative process that transcends the struggles of a musician’s life. Featuring musicians Basya Schecter. Daniel Kahn, Enosh Marinag, Vanessa Paloma, Socalled, and others. Students for $4, Members for $6, General Admission for $8.

Science:

Monday, August 8th

The World War 2 Club [50 Conz St, Northampton, MA 01060] at 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Nerd Nite NoHo

This month will be awesome! You should come. It’s about both race relations and software debugging! Also we’ll have special prizes for you this month just like last month!

The Valley Nerd Watch!

First order of business: Finding Dory was adoryble.

So hey it’s Steam sale time! That’s a fun time, right? Might we recommend that if you have a backlog of games that you haven’t yet played you devote a large portion of your purchases to pals? It’s always nice to make someone else happy! And not to worry, in 4-6 months everything you’re into will be on sale again.

This is also the perfect time to mention that Local Creator and Excellent History Person Rebecca Slitt has a game on Steam! That’s right, for the duration of the sale Psy High is only two danged dollars! Buy 30 copies! Send them to everyone you know!

So we finally “won” a COIN game, by default. We got 0 points to our opponents -1, -1, and -2. It was Falling Sky, the Gallic Revolt Against Ceasar, and it’s probably our favorite of the ones we’ve played. First of all, because we’ve always been interested in the time period. Second, the mechanics slotted together quickly and easily and produced a lot less decision paralysis than prior games we’ve played in the series. Though that might be because more of the players had played several COIN games already. Still, a very good time and we got to kill Ceasar with Vercingetorix, kicking off an awesome alternate history!

Hey did you hear that Nerd Nite is back? It’s been a little bit, but wow have we got a great one lined up for July 11th at the World War 2 Club! It’s going to feature discussion of Philosophical Zombies and the vagaries of Digital Preservation! The speakers are both really excited to share their expertise and we’re excited to learn!

THIS WEEK

Art:

Campers young and old and presumably in between, come decorate a jar to make a great night light! There’s a $5 supply fee per child or a purchase of a book to attend, and you need to pre-register now! Call 413-534-7307 to sign up!

A select group of 8 you writers, ages 10-14, can sign up for some summer sessions with author and teacher Nell Wright to work on their Wrighting! A theme is going to be determined at the first meeting! Be sure to register as soon as possible, the space is limited! Call 413-772-1544 extension 5 for more info!

Learn to make delicious candy sushi! You’ll be starting from scratch, putting together a complex candy ecosystem to provide the ingredients necessary. First come the candy plankton, which feed larger candy organisms all the way up through a great candy chain to the delicious Candy Tuna.Then comes the Candy Rice farming! It’s a long process but it’s worth it.

Daily, from July 1st – August 14th! Drop-in anytime! Join the folks at Historic Northampton to explore dye-making! Plant parts from roots to leaves to stems to flowers can be turned into beautiful pigments! Even mushrooms and insects can help! Prepare the dye pot by gathering dye plants, and leave with a lot of new learning and a hand-dyed project!

Books:

Emily Barton brings her inventive historical novel to the Odyssey! It’s an alt-history where the empire of Jewish warriors existing between the Black Sea and the Caspian has never fallen, and was now standing between Hitler and the conquest of Russia! It follows the daughter of the Chief Policy Minister figuring out how to fight for her traditionalist nation after realizing what an existential threat it’s under. Which involves possibly magically being changed into a man by a secret village of Kabbalists. It sounds like a pretty dang densely packed book!

Reading Relay is a story-time for all ages! A new theme every week with puppets, felt boards, and short plays during an hour in which everyone can read! Get your young readers involved, and bring along even younger listeners!

Let the library know what you’d like to see! They’re creating a new long range plan, which will establish their goals for the next five years. This is your chance to get your pet concept into the plan! Want the library to spend more time investigating the ghostly wails in the Old Archive? Maybe you’d like them to put locks on any book that glows for longer than an hour with unspeakable runes? Get out there and ask!

Entertainment:

Play Quidditch on the Library Lawn! It’s gotta be ground-only, unfortunately. We know we know, flying is a huge thrill but hey we need to include the folks who can’t. The Valley might be a magical place but it’s not a Magical place, you know? Very few Wizards around here. Impossible to get enough flyers together for a decent flying league. But hey, it’ll still be fun!

No! RUN! They’re coming, they’re coming so much faster than we anticipated! The traps only slow them down, it’s like they don’t even feel pain anymore. What? Who? The TEENS, reader! The teens are coming, and they’re upending the old order! We grew complacent in our grandeur and now they storm the library, a just punishment from the Gods for our hubris. Nothing to do now… nothing to do but watch these Teens hang out, game, and talk while holding an informal meeting of the Teen Advisory Board. It’s drop in, so no sign-up required.

A presentation about marketing your local business online! Followed by a Q&A. Roger Montti, an Internet Marketing consultant, will help you learn about marketing and make connections with fellow business owners in town!

Pickles and jam and lemonade and switchel and pickleade and switchjam. Learn how people in early New England kept cool during hot summer days and kept their produce from getting gross! Open hearth cooks will demonstrate for you!

Indiana Jones and Not One Of The Good Ones But Not The Worst One is playing on the lawn! Bring a blanket and some snacks, enjoy a movie on a beautiful evening in the summer. It’s free, and you can pee at the pizza place nearby but you should probably at least buy a soda in thanks if you do so.

In the Nazi concentration camp Terezin, imprisoned conductor Rafael Schachter led his fellow inmates to fight back with art and music, including a performance of one of the world’s most difficult and powerful choral works, Verdi’s Requiem, re-imagined as a condemnation of the Nazis. The film also tells the story of conductor Murry Sidlin, who decades later brought the Requiem back to Terezin in tribute. Students can get in for $4, Members for $6, and the rest of us for $8.

RPGs:

No site fee charged for new players or for students of the Five Colleges! Donations beyond request fee count as donations to the domain and may be eligible for prestige! This Changeling game is about climate change basically! Bad magical climate change? Maybe? Figure it out when you get there!

Science:

Join naturalist Laurie Sanders for a walking tour during your lunch hour! Disturb the unquiet dead! Experience the terror of knowing skellingtons are directly beneath your feet! Learn about history and respectfully observe residents of the town gone by! Space is limited, so be sure to pre-register at lsanders@historicnorthampton.org. There’s a suggested donation of $5 if you’re a member, $10 if you aren’t. If you’re feeling generous though feel free to gift them a new wing or a 5-year research grant.

The Valley Nerd Watch!

Happy December! We hope it’s a good month for you, despite the fact that you’re likely dealing with a bunch of holiday-related stress. Or finals, maybe? Man, we’re so frigging happy we don’t have finals any more. Wow, like the working world has its own problems obviously, but finals were the wooorst. Speaking of the worst, today’s Nerd Watch is a bit later than we’d like it to be thanks to the magic of *migraines*.

Speaking of how migraines are the pits, have you checked out Hannah Shaffer’s brand-new Kickstarted game “14 Days“? It’s about migraines and how people deal with them. Speaking of Hannah Shaffer, have you heard the news? She’s presenting tonight at Nerd Nite NoHo, the most important and entertaining event in all the month of December! She’s going to talk about RPGs, which are good times and also slightly intimidating. Also presenting: Pat King! Pat King is a game designer, and he’s going to talk about his experience creating a VR music video thing called “The Vanishing Point” that is super nifty.

This holiday season, don’t be a danged fool! Check the Valley Creators list to find out which local notable nerds you can support via capitalism! You can also send them a kind card or something, but we’re almost certain they’d appreciate your hard-earned cash as well. There are a ton of people on that list! You’ll find gifts appropriate for friends and family of all ages and interests. You’re welcome.

As always, be sure to check out the Weekly Events page! There are a lot of fun things happening this and every week! And don’t forget to check out the updated Book Clubs List!

THIS WEEK

Art:

Finally! A chance for the Saga of the Ice Masters to reach a wider audience! The 45-volume series you wrote over the month of November is brilliant, we all know that. But it still hasn’t received the recognition it deserves. Take your brilliance to the masses by reading selections at this event coordinated by Forbes Writer in Residence Naila Moreira!

Hey are you into Runes? Well, who isn’t nowadays? The only way to become more powerful in the art of Rune Casting is, as we all know, developing a unique artistic style to allow for more complex Rune Combos! Learn to use the power of art journals to lay waste to your enemies in this unique course hosted by a talented and experienced artist!

We played the BattleTech RPG two times. We made characters the first time, we fought once out and once in mechs the second time. It still sticks in our head for how intense it was. Our favorite part? The fact that our character lost all four of their limbs over the course of their career in accountancy, thanks to some bad dice rolls in character creation. Anyway! Alpha Strike seems cool, learn to play Sunday afternoon!

So hey Enterprise was a pretty terrible show, right? But people generally seem to have positive feelings toward some of the later Temporal Cold War stuff! This Attack Wing tournament will see you trying to keep a raging battle away from the surface of an… EXPLOSIVE PLANET? There’s a $15 entry fee, which gets you a booster and a chance for prizes! Bring a 90sp starting build, to which you will add the booster pack!

Computers:

Tuesday, December 15th

MYSTERY LOCATION SHOWN TO MEMBERS

Getting Started With Docker – Monthly Full Stack Meetup

Michael Klatsky (VP – Systems at Esperdyne Technologies, LLC in Hadley voted “name most indicative of likely contribution to some sort of sinister alien takeover of Earth: five years running) is going to join to talk to people about how to use Docker effectively! Join up at the Meetup to find the location!

Thursday, December 17th

Amherst Media [246 College St., Amherst, MA] at 6:00pm

Western MA Drupal Meetup

Drupal! A useful web design framework that you probably are using or interested in using. Come talk to a bunch of people who also work with Drupal about your own work and how to solve problems and all that jazz! Fun and useful.

Ah, the Holidays. A time for togetherness in the face of the darkness and dreariness of our Temperate Zone winter. The Last Call Media team invites one and all to a nice party the… same day the new Star Wars movie comes out. Hm. Might be low attendance.

Entertainment:

So hey one cool thing about the area is that Doodle Studios in Connecticut does a metric crud-ton of LEGO animation work! It’s pretty cool! You’ll get a chance to meet Elizabeth Popolo, an animator for Doodle who’s going to show off some of her work on LEGO Star Wars animation! She’ll also have a Q+A afterward! And there are trivia questions and prizes! The best night to prep for The Force Awakens!

Jedi training! Children ages 7 and up can come test their mettle! First, you make your own Light Saber and Star Wars crafts, then test your skills against the Jedi obstacle course! Costumes are welcomed and encouraged, registration for the craft portion is required!

Movies:

Ahhh, the coolest of the Tim Burton filmography. Also, the one that struck some inexplicably strong chord with that one friend of yours and caused you to watch this 43 times in high school. But it’s been a bit since High School! Watch it again at the beautiful Forbes Library!

RPGs:

Dungeons? Basically like basements, only with a lot more stuff and sometimes cults. Dragons? Ever had a pet lizard? That’s the basic scope of it, but they like gold instead of heat lamps and rocks. This is a 5th level adventure that you can join at any session! The GM, Neal Robinson, will show you a great time.

Science:

Beyond having the most charming host in the universe, Nerd Nite this month will be a really neat time with two charming presenters. First we’ve got Hannah Shaffer, talking about coming to RPGs as an adult player and designer, and then we’ve got Pat King, talking about an awesome VR music extravaganza he made! There’s a $5 ticket, but in exchange you get a great rocket stamp.

The Valley Nerd Watch!

Bit late again, we know. But hey, look on the bright side: it’s out by the time you’re reading this, right? Yes, flawless logic wins the day. Prepping Nerd Nite takes a bit out of us, alright?

So also a big part of the reason we took so long today is because of…

Drumroll please.

Do it. We can tell.

Alright, good job. That drumroll is apropos to the moment. It’s a big moment!

We’ve created a Valley Creators hub! It’s a place you can check for a bunch of super-cool people who are going to appreciate your business. We tried to stick mainly to people with products available for sale, because we figure that will be the most helpful for people? It’s kind of just a way for us to keep track of all the wonderful stuff we’ve been lucky enough to discover, really! There are so many people around here doing so many wonderful things, and we really encourage you to check them out!

Also in the news:

What? Local Holiday Pickups in Easthampton, MA!
From now until sometime Christmas, you can pick up your order at our Holiday Pop-Up Shop in Eastworks in Easthampton, MA! Just select “I Will Pick Up My Order in Easthampton” From the Checkout Shipping Selection Menu. Your order will be ready to pick up 24 hours after you place it. You can pick up Wednesday – Sunday from Noon to 6pm.

THIS WEEK

Books:

It’s the halfway mark! By now, you’re probably about 67% through the nineteenth novel of the series you write under your pseudonym “Crack Whiplash”. That’s the one about space cowboys. But if you need some help staying motivated, give a chance to this lovely group of people headed up by the Forbes Writer in Residence, Naila Moreira. Get to work!

Adults who write for children are invited to attend a critique group at the GPL! It’s facilitated by Nell Wright, and participants can discuss skills, share tips and opportunities, and just read and discuss stories! Sounds like an awesome resource for local authors.

Wen Stephenson: “What We’re Fighting For Now Is Each Other: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Climate Justice”

We face a radically changing world that’s kind of horrific in a lot of ways, yeah? Well, what do we do about it? Wen Stephenson tells his story of radical environmentalism, and encourages the reader to reconsider the struggle. He explains how modern environmentalism is closer to a human-rights campaign than a traditional environmental protection campaign. Sounds interesting!

Syria is facing enormous crisis at the moment. Neighboring countries have had a hard time accepting refugees. Acclaimed chefs and cookbook authors have come together to help food relief efforts. The profits from this excellent cookbook will be donated to help food relief efforts through the United Nation’s UNHCR. Help out, and try sample soups!

The UMass Press is pleased to bring two great authors to the Jones Library! Christian G. Appy is a professor of history at UMass Amherst, and Clark Dougan was a senior editor at the UMass Press. Both have written numerous books on the Vietnam War, and here present Appy’s latest, “American Reckoning”.

It’s PAST the halfway mark! By now, you’re probably about 97% through the nineteenth novel of the series you write under your pseudonym “Crack Whiplash”. That’s the one about space cowboys. Figure out that climactic space-cattle space-rustling sequence with this meetup!

Comics:

A monthly discussion group on the Third Monday of each month! This friendly group discusses topics such as LGBTQIA+ representation in comics and games! They’re a great source for fun conversation and good recommendations. Admission by $5 day pass, which you can immediately redeem as store credit!

Computers:

Drupal! A web dev thing. There’s a meeting of the Western Mass Drupal Users Group this week, and it’s going to be to hold a party for the release of a new iteration of Drupal! Exciting, if you’re into Drupal!

Friday, November 20th

Packard’s Bar [14 Masonic St, Northampton, MA 01060] at 8:00pm

Northampton Webdive – After Dark

A regular meeting place for coders, designers, and just in general awesome folks who do things that relate in some manner to the internet and code! Meet some new friends, trade secrets, dance the dance of the coders!

Entertainment:

Color-coded circuit boards snap together to produce sophisticated electronic things! Sounds pretty excellent. It’s for agest 8-11, teach kids to build electronic devices! But have a conversation about the reasons NOT to build death rays.

Ukulele educator Julie Calamine will offer a beginner’s ukulele lesson and strum-along at Palmer! Fun times, intended for adult beginners and non-musicians. Hype yourself up for The Well-Tempered Ukes later in the week!

Craft Night in Sunderland! Not much in the way of details but… hey, seems fun. Did you know the Fury Road cast had a knitting circle? Apparently Tom Hardy had a tough time of it, but Nicholas Hoult and Charlize Theron were a dab hand.

A musical residency at Forbes! Delightful. Listen to the Well Tempered Ukes sing and play early music, as well as parlor and art songs! It’s free of charge to see, but donations for Northampton’s Interfaith Winter Shelter will be accepted.

Movies:

Stephen Hawking, best known for his role as “Professor Stephen Hawking” on Futurama, also had a surprisingly varied career in the sciences! This movie has definitely been regarded as a kind of lightweight biopic by people we trust for movie reviews BUT hey, it’s a famous scientist biopic and that might be up your alley.

RPGs:

Role-Playing Games are a fun time for all. Whether you’re into D&D and you’re looking for a group, or you’re GMing a a game of FATE and you want some eager new players, come hang out! Admission by $5 day pass!

Star Wars! We hear some of you are pretty into this obscure 70’s relic. Though long forgotten by all sensible people, a dedicated fanbase has somehow kept hope alive for the possibility of a dozen new films that all make billions of dollars. Play in that cool space-fantasy world with the RPG!

Science:

Science of two real disparate types! First we’ve got Gavin Andresen presenting “From Stone Money to Cypherpunks: What does the Island of Yap have to do with Bitcoin?” Bitcoin is familiar to us mostly as a way of starting arguments on the internet, so it’ll be interesting to learn more! Then we’ve got Patricia Brennan with “Why are there so many freaky genitalia, and why do we care?”. Which honestly kind of sells itself. Also, local notable and handsome genius James Olchowski will host, to the delight of all.

Each week, a guest presenter will come to the LeVanway Room of the GPL to introduce you to a new science concept with a book and an activity. It sounds kind of great, though we’re not certain the expected grade level. Then again, it’s not like we super got a hang of osmosis the first go-round.

Nature printing! It’s pretty fun! Leonore Alaniz will discuss inking foliage and direct imprints it onto paper and cloth. It’s kind of cool to look at! It’s been used to track things throughout history, and also just for a fun time collecting cool pictures!